


Turning Toward the Light

by Kestrel337



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Depression, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Minor Violence, Other, Post Hiatus, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 10:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrel337/pseuds/Kestrel337
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John joins Mrs. Hudson in her annual Winter Solstice observance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning Toward the Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sabrina_Phynn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabrina_Phynn/gifts).



> Sabrina_Phynn asked for someone to assign one of their holiday traditions to a character from the show. I started this, it took the bit in its teeth and ran off in a totally unanticipated direction. I let it. So what resulted is not what I'd intended, as in it's darker than I meant it to be.

Mrs. Hudson answered the tap on her door quickly. She’d asked John to stop by this evening. She had an idea that tonight could provide something he didn’t even know he needed.

“Come in, dear.” 

He followed her into the dark kitchen, glancing about in confusion. “Have you blown a fuse? I can get my torch...”

Her laugh startled him. “No, no, dear. The lights are fine; I’ve just not turned them on. I asked you to come by because I thought you might like to celebrate Winter Solstice with me.”

“Right. Solstice. Okay. So on the longest night of the year, you turn off all the lights?”

Mrs. Hudson looked shrewdly at her tenant. She knew him to be a good man, a solid man, but also a man who needed a certain amount of activity and chaos to thrive. She’d suspected it when they first met, witnessed it firsthand later. John Watson being still and silent was John Watson in danger from himself. She’d spent a great deal of Sherlock’s absence chivvying him into activity to keep the demons at bay. Now these men she loved as sons were again in perpetual motion, their twin orbits drawn more tightly than ever. John walked in Sherlock’s light now, and lit his partner in turn, but he’d never acknowledged the dark place he’d been. Mrs. Hudson knew from bitter experience that denying its existence granted the dark enormous power. Only by owning it would John be able to bear its weight in future, or prevent its ambushing him at some future date. These past three months he had been a man miraculously returning to himself. It was time for the next step. John needed to revisit that still place, dangerous though it might be, and claim his portion of shadow. 

“Yes, I turn off all the lights on Solstice night. Have you ever thought about how much time we spend denying the darkness? We’re afraid that if we let it in, it’ll stay forever. But of course that’s not true.” She wouldn’t allow it to be true for John. “The world is always spinning, from light to dark to light again. On Solstice we begin to move from darkness into light. I’d hoped you would sit with me tonight, dear, and think about the dark times that we’re passing out of.”

She knew John wasn’t stupid; he wouldn’t miss the metaphor. Unless he deliberately ignored it, a choice she hoped he wouldn’t make. He looked at her, his eyes bottomless in the dark room. The thoughts that chased themselves around his head would have been as obvious to his lover, she thought, as they were to her. Few others were privileged to know this quiet man so well. When he gave a soldierly nod she smiled proudly.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down, John. Here, take this candle to the table. We’ll sit together and remember. Take as long as you need, think about whatever comes to mind. Remember that whatever darkness you’ve walked into, you’ve also walked out of. When you think your mind and heart are ready, light your candle to welcome the bright times that are to come.” 

She arranged herself in the opposite seat, putting a box and two loose matches between them. Her eyes tracked John’s careful inhalations, saw his blue eyes drift closed as he embraced the exercise. When she was sure he would follow through, she settled into her own observance. 

Silence settled over the kitchen, reminiscent of the shadowed and fretful silence of several months ago. She remembered how frightened she’d been every time she opened the door upstairs, terrified of finding John’s body as broken as his spirit. She recalled the times she’d called Lestrade, or Molly, or Stamford, to go in her stead, unable to brave the seventeen stairs herself. Her relief on the day Anderson had tumbled back down nearly the full flight, rebuffed and bruised. The violence would have appalled John’s therapist, but Mrs. Hudson had been so glad that John was shouting, was moving, she’d have let him deny a thousand apologies. She sifted through memories of untouched sandwiches and tea, broken glassware and un-drunk whisky. 

Then the image of Sherlock, so pale and thin in the entry, grasping at John’s diminished frame, clutching at his jumper and calling his name as the doctor’s strength gave out. Her fury as he’d cradled John’s hand in his own, begging him to open his eyes, promising never to hurt him so again if he’d only wake up. The days and weeks as the two began to move raggedly, stutteringly back into the strange life they had shared. The confrontation outside her door, shouts and tears and “Damn it, John,” followed by a strangely muffled gasp and telling silence. Her surreptitious peek at a kiss that had rivaled anything Hollywood had ever orchestrated. Yes, there was an image to carry into the light: the damaged edges of two souls finally snapping into place. 

Taking a deep breath she opened her eyes, struck a match and touched fire to the votive before her. Its flickering light showed tears dripping from John’s cheeks even as his face slid gently from agony to acceptance. It hovered there for long moment, and then ever so slowly his features resolved into an expression of anticipation. His hands were steady as he lit his own candle and met her eyes.

With the slightest of nods she uncovered a carafe and picked it up, swirling it slightly to make sure the contents were well mixed. “Will you serve the biscuits, dear? I’ll pour us some chocolate. I find that a little nibble is just the thing after so much remembering.”

John put ginger nuts on the waiting plates, and then returned her salute with his mug before sipping at the spiced chocolate. He raised his eyebrows in surprise, and then looked inquiringly to his hostess.

“I always like Mexican spiced cocoa and ginger nut biscuits on Solstice. Spices to remind us of the warmer days to come and sweetness for the joys of the spring and summer.”

“I hope you saved some of these for Sherlock. You know he’ll smell them on me, and of all the things you bake, they’re his favourite.”

Mrs. Hudson leaned back in her chair and smiled at the dear man across from her. Although the room was still filled with flickering shadows, the threat had passed. John’s shoulders were at ease, no longer trying to hold separate the despair of the past and the pleasure of the present. Joy shone undimmed when he spoke the name of his beloved. 

“There’s a plate for you to take home, and the recipe for the chocolate as well.” 

He smiled as he thanked her, saying pointedly, “For everything”. 

And as the earth rolled onward toward the morning, Mrs. Hudson’s heart reached gladly into the returning light.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks (biscuits and cocoa?) to SwissMiss for amazingly fast beta turn-around.


End file.
